New Hair Accessories

 I've been experimenting with a few new designs for stylish hair do-dads. In the picture above, you can see the snap clip variety. I love these because the leaf covers the silver snap clip.

I've also been working on some more barrettes- and I think these cables are just the right side. The single color keeps it simple, while the cable adds depth. I'm looking forward to working up some more in different colors and patterns.

Alan's Robot

My friend Alan loves robots. I promised him ages ago that I would make him a robot, and I finally came through. Here's Alan's robot. 

I used buttons for his eyes, the "gears" on his chest, and the sides of his head. I think the little guy looks a bit overstuffed, but he is a bit rounded and cute that way. 

Organized Crafting

I tell myself I want to do many things. I can't count the number of projects I have started and then stashed and forgotten about. The last few days however, I've been on a serious productivity roll. I think it has something to do with being so close to the end of this quarter- I just turned in two large final projects and all the sudden have mental and physical energy aplenty. 

Anyway, I used some upholstery fabric left over from a renaissance fair bodice to make cases for my knitting needles and crochet hooks. I've made attempts at this before (I don't recommend crochet- the small hooks slip right through), but neither worked out for various reasons. 

The new set is both functional and attractive- or I think so. Judge for yourself. 

This is all three pieces together. The small blob holds stitch markers, point protectors, a set of small scissors, etc. 

The construction is actually pretty simple. I measured the height of my tools and knew I wanted the width when closed to be about five inches- so the width when open is about four times that- 20 inches. Then I cut enough of the dark blue to make a small pocket, and enough of the red to make a slightly higher pocket. My iron was my best friend! It really helped when I closed off the edges- the bias tape I had wasn't wide enough, so I made my own out of more of the red fabric.

Here's the inside of the little guy. It was a lot of small area sewing. I'm really proud of both myself and my brother sewing machine. He worked like a champ. I pilfered the zipper from a bag of Basmati rice- and it didn't have guards on either end of the zipper. I lost the zipper pull a few times. The little guy is cute and is intended to fit in project bags. 

I'm hoping to be a more productive crafter and blogger- so here's to organized productivity!